TweetDeck is now true real-time

My first job was on a bond trading desk in the mid-1980s. I was mesmerized by the real-time "scrolling" news feeds from Dow Jones and Reuters (most recent story auto-magically appears at the top of the list of headlines).

"Wow," I thought, I am seeing the news as it is being reported with no delay at all!

In fact I thought this was so insanely cool that I worked at Knight-Ridder Financial in the late 1980s and early 1990s. KRF was a pioneer in real-time news for the commodity and financial markets. I was based in Tokyo and then Hong Kong. I managed the effort to grow the news and data feeds in the Asia markets.

As an aside, I am back in Asia for a few days and I am writing this post from this awesome work pod in the Cathay Pacific lounge in Hong Kong.

In the mid 1990s I joined NewsEdge, a company that pioneered real-time news on corporate desktops (prior to the public Web).

I guess you can say I am a real-time junkie.

Today, when I woke up in Port Dickson Malaysia (I spoke at the Text 100 #DigitalRising meeting) and logged into TweetDeck, my twitter desktop client, I noticed a message that a new version is available which I downloaded. How cool – now TweetDeck is true real-time.

Prior to this version, TweetDeck would update every minute or so or when you manually refreshed. (This older approach is essentially a continuously refreshing snapshot.)

Now, true real-time at TweetDeck means the most recent update in a TweetDeck column automatically appears at the top and continuously updates.

I found for my @ replies, my direct messages, and for the hashtags I follow real-time is great. However, for my follow stream it was way too fast to make sense of.

I'd like to suggest to TweetDeck that they consider making it an option to turn on or off real-time by column. At the moment, you can only do that with a setting that controls the entire app. This forces me to choose between real-time for the columns I use (and no column for the full feed) or no real-time at all and all columns.

Comments

[Alfian Che]

what u doin in port dickson yo? i in kl!

[LeoVerdonck]

Dear David,

I agree, The real time speed of the tweet content can be to fast so now and then.
(just like life itself ;-) )

Can I suggest /or add that a slide rule per column with which you can control its content speed would be perfect..

Kind regards,
Leo

[GraemeThickins]

Hi, David, from the other side of the world. What you suggest can easily be done on TweetGrid -- i.e., slow down the flow of tweets by column. They've had that feature for quite a while. So, in this respect, TweetDeck is behind the times. I use this feature often when I'm watching popular hashtags (like a live event). Yep, sometimes firehoses just have to be turned down!

[Idoyammf]

Hi David!
Idoya Maté, from Spain. I'm currently reading your book (the new rules...) 4 a master in corporate communication at the Instituto the Empresa.I found it so challenging that I decided to follow u on a closer approach.
For the moment, I'm gonna check tweetdeck. I'm newby with tweeter...

[David Meerman Scott]

Hello Idoya - Thanks for reading my stuff! Good luck implementing the ideas.

Are you reading my book in English or Spanish?

[Idoyammf]

In English, but i don't know if it is translated to Spanish. And depiste being in english it is easy reading, so I can enjoy it much more.

[Kathryn Korostoff]

So let's use Tweetdeck to leverage Twitter as a leanrning tool! I am going to be experimenting with Twitter as a learning medium by hosting the first ever Twitterversity--a day long learning event hosted entirely on Twitter (Topic: Learning Market Research). My colleagues and I will be releasing 117 mini-lessons (yes, under 140 characters each) on Jan 11. It is a bit of an experiment--can Twitter be an effective instructional medium? We'll know soon! http://www.researchrockstar.com/mrxu/

[Debt]

Well, I am agree that Twitter is best learning tool. Twitter marketing is a very effective way to generate traffic to your content and create an online presence in the fastest time.

[aluminium kozijnen]

Of course Twitter is great way to reach our goal.. Though this tool we can promote our website.. If we share that time we can use in English only.. That one is good compared to other languages.. Nowadays Twitter is best marketing tool compared to others..